Candle
Sarah Cheng-De Winne

Perfect Healer
Lin Si Tong

Brave Tears
Emily Haw

Local female singer- songwriters are enlivening the music scene with several new releases.
On the English-Mandarin EP Candle, Sarah Cheng-De Winne’s (right, above) diction is a little raw on the Mandarin tracks. But her emotive singing makes up for it on the ballad The Grace Of Love and on I Need You, which starts as a mid-tempo track and transitions to the dance floor.
On the bouncy title track, her luscious vocals swoop high and dip low as she promises: “Baby you are my candle/ I’m gonna burn with you again.”
Lin Si Tong is mostly sweet and cheery on the five-track Perfect Healer, the follow-up to her debut EP, Tong’s Music (2012). Amid easygoing fare, the most dramatic number is the ballad Black-Winged Heart as she sings: “Tears protest silently, yet so transparently, that you can’t see clearly/But time will reveal all mysteries.”
Coincidentally, Emily Haw also sings about transparent tears on her EP’s title track. The EP is a little raw around the edges and some of the line phrasings feel awkward. The electronica-infused Waiting is the most distinctive track here and that was from her 2012 “photo-audio project” released on DVD.
(ST)